Introduction
Two main thoughts are at the origin of this research work and exposition:
First, to discuss a number of practices at the interdisciplinary boundary between the Arts (mainly Sound Art) and the Sciences dealing with place and space (Architecture, Urban planning, Social Sciences, as well as more technical disciplines in the field of engineering). The practices presented here are often considered exclusively as artistic, ignoring their hybrid nature and contributing to an illusion of well demarcated disciplinary areas and concepts.
Second, to share and expose a series of dialogues between my individual or collective practice as an artist, architect and researcher, and the artistic pieces or scientific methods that have been a (more or less conscious) reference along my work. To display and reflect on these foundational components of our own practice provides a beneficial transparency in terms of borrowed/shared/common working processes and methods. An artistic practice is necessarily anchored in a propitious social-cultural-technical environment which is not always acknowledged and examined in detail.
This exposition is thus composed of a number of nodes that portray the encounter of different disciplines, practices, methods, concepts and materials. In each node, one or several reference Sound Art and Music pieces are deciphered, interpreted through the lens of my own practice. The focus is not placed here on the description of the well-known qualities of these pieces, but mainly on the seeds they contain, on the latent components that can be (and have been) planted again for the generation of new questions and research processes. And these fertile elements might not be considered as central by the artist or the analysts. They might look out of focus and even be in critical contradiction with the artist’s statements and claims. Contradiction is featured here as a main component of any creative and research process, especially in regard to our reference materials -and to our previous production as well.
In addition to these reinterpreted references, the nodes in this exposition include artistic and/or pedagogic situations and pieces taken out of my own practice. These are illustrated through a short description and audio-visual documentation sketching the main frame and key components of each exploration. These examples intend to provide concrete manifestations of the aspects discussed for each reference, establishing an open dialogue in which the reader is invited to project his/her own research questions and processes.
The concept of openness towards the reader/visitor is an intentional strategy in this exposition. The graphic format chosen is an invitation to freely navigate among the nodes, to establish cross-references between the materials disposed and to mentally expand the exposition with own references, reflections and working processes, prolonging thus the started dialogue in between sound and space.